Why I Support Barack Obama for the Democratic Party Nominee: The Audacity of Data

image from tsevis

Barack Obama is a politician running for the Democratic nomination.  It is easy to mistake him for someone else, if you keep up with the pundits or listen to people running against him.  His approach may be different, his narrative may be motivating or ridiculous (depending on your POV) - but there is no denying the fact that Barack Obama is a politician. 

Wikipedia defines a politician as

an individual who is involved in influencing public decisionmaking through the influence of politics or a person who influences the way a society is governed through an understanding of political power and group dynamics

I am supporting Obama because I respect his decisonmaking, I agree with many of his decisions and I believe that expanding his influence would be positive for the country I am a citizen of.  Yes, I love his speeches - definitely I admire his campaign - to be very obscure, I actually prefer his font and visual design.

All of that is secondary to the fact that I think that Barack Obama is a politician who I have become convinced will best fulfill the responsibilities as  the head of state and head of government of the United States.

My rationale for this is expressed in great part by Noam Scheiber in this post on The New Republic :

The Audacity of Data  ~ Barack Obama's surprisingly non-ideological policy shop

Scheiber takes a look at how Obama has made critical decisions and the people who he looks to for advice and counsel.  In his early section on Obama's economic advisors, Scheiber captures some of the motivating mindset in this section:

Despite Obama's reputation for grandiose rhetoric and utopian hope-mongering, the Obamanauts aren't radicals--far from it. They're pragmatists--people who, when an existing paradigm clashes with reality, opt to tweak that paradigm rather than replace it wholesale. As Thaler puts it, "Physics with friction is not as beautiful. But you need it to get rockets off the ground." It might as well be the motto for Obama's entire policy shop.

Physics without friction - what a compelling idea after 16 years of politics that seemed to thrive on friction.  Pragmatism - wow, what an idea after the grand experiment of government out-sourced to the corporate world or to fat-cat special interests.

The primary issue which led me to support Obama even before he announced his candidacy is the Iraq War, which I feel is the crucible through which we can evaluate our options for President this year.  Scheiber captures the audacity of Obama's decision on this vital topic:

Still, there's probably no better illustration of the Obama camp's Hamiltonian sensibility than the debate over the war. Former Clinton officials like Lake, Rice, and Danzig all opposed the idea from the get-go (as did Hamilton himself). In doing so, they faced down pleas from within the Democrats' permanent State-Department-in-waiting that opposition would be politically disastrous. "Many Democrats had opposed [the first Gulf war]. And these people--particularly the older people, felt like that had been a big mistake. They didn't want to make it twice," recalls an Obama adviser. "It got rather acrimonious."

In the face of these arguments, the would-be Obamanauts didn't invoke some sweeping alternative paradigm--say, the kind of abstract theorizing you'd get from a Kissinger tome. They simply pointed out where the Bush doctrine of preemption and democracypromotion broke down--the "anomalies," if you will. Intuition told them that an easy war was a fantasy, that the United States would face a long and brutal occupation. Many had security clearances during the Clinton administration and had never seen credible evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Almost everyone worried that an invasion would detract from the fight against Al Qaeda. "It should have been obvious to anyone who'd served in government that we can't walk and chew gum at same time," says one Obama adviser. "That's not a paradigm, that's a judgment."

A judgment - that is what we count on politicians for.  Every day they make judgments - some are critical, some are trivial.  Measuring politicians by how they make those judgements seems to me to the focus of any political campaign.  Process stories are interesting - scandals give a window into ??? - debates can be entertaining.  But judgments is what we entrust to the President.

For that reason alone, I am voting for Barack Obama, based on the audacity of data, the promise of pragmatism, the hope of a little less friction and a little more getting rockets off the ground.